Easter Week...

This has been a strange week for me. I've been extra emotional and some days just plain cranky. The week started off awesome with baptisms at church, those always make me cry, and my heart was full. But then came Tuesday, the day we woke up with SNOW covering the ground. April 19th and it snowed, its golf and track season, not ski season! I love snow, but enough is enough!

Then I got to thinking. This week has been an emotional roller coaster for me, was God using this week and my emotions as an object lesson? The week Jesus died was a week with a far greater emotional roller coaster ride.

I began to imagine what it would have been like to be a spectator on Jesus' last week. To be there waving palm branches as He entered Jerusalem that day. To shout hosanna and to watch my King enter the city! Wow, what  a celebration that must have been.

Fast forward to Thursday. Can you imagine hearing that Jesus had been arrested? That the King you just celebrated is being beaten over and over. Then to see the crowd who welcomed Him so joyously turn on Him and ask for his crucifixion. 

Can you imagine the horror of watching Him carrying His own cross? With the guards taunting Him and the crown of thorns digging deeper into His head?

Can you hear the nails as they pounded them into His body? The horror of seeing Him up there bleeding on the cross? Then to see Him take His final breath? We can only partially imagine the actual cruelty of His death.

Then came those dark days of trying to adjust to what you have just seen. Did it really happen? Why did my King have to die? Where is my hope? What do I do? Then you hear that his tomb is empty, He is gone! Who would do such a thing? Hasn't we suffered enough? Just when you are at the bottom of your emotional roller coaster, you are told, He's not in the tomb because He's alive! Yes! It's true Jesus lives! Oh the joy and excitement, as all the pain and anguish from the past three days washes away.

My Redeemer Lives!!!!